The opening line of Dart’s letter brings news from the Plain Dealer that a ship named the General William Mitchell was due to arrive in San Francisco today. The last word the Petersons had from Burke was that he was to be on that ship. They expect a call from him any day now. I find the fact that a newspaper in Ohio was reporting the arrival of ships in California to be most revealing. It shows the immense interest the entire nation had during the World War II era of the whereabouts of ships. That’s how far flung “the boys” from all over the country were. Do you suppose that in modern times the Cleveland newspaper still reports the arrival of every ship into the San Francisco port?
Anyway, that means that soon, Dart will have to return the pair of trousers he’s been wearing to his little brother and acquire a pair of his own. One of the surplus stores on Pawnbrokers Row, aka Prospect Ave. was advertising gray twill officer’s pants (summer weight) for $1.75 a pair. If there are any long, skinny ones left, Dart will try to grab some.
Dart and his political science class mates have endured two weeks of dire warnings from Dr. Heckman about their recent test scores. The results should be ready to share tomorrow, so unless Dart keels over from the shame of it, he’ll let her know then how he did. It seems, however, all the examples Dr. Heckman has been sharing with the class about what he didn’t like from the test answers could have been read directly from Dart’s own paper. He’s not anticipating anything good.
He’s been working on his train layout a great deal. The model railroad club meets at his house on August 16. Because so many of the guys will have to drive nearly 20 miles to see it, he wants to make sure there is something for them to see.
He writes a lengthy paragraph about the contradictions in today’s weather: hot as Hades when he went to church this morning, but then sort of “room temperature” in the afternoon; gray skies, but not really cloudy; not a breath of a breeze, yet the air felt fresh. It has hardly rained at all since Dot left, but he hopes she won’t stay away on that account.
So many times during the day when he and his folks were talking about various things, Dart would wish out loud that “Dottie were here.” His mother suggested that he might be getting homesick for her. Gee, is she the mistress of understatement?
He goes on for some time about his daydreams of Uncle Guy’s farm, which is laying fallow somewhere in the outskirts of Cleveland (He doesn’t mention where.) He imagines that he and Dot could make use of it next summer as a kind of retreat – maybe have a house party there if they can make a few friends. He describes in great detail about the overgrowth of shrubs and forest as nature continues a relentless encroachment toward the house. The orchard that Guy Junior chopped down several years ago is now bearing healthy apples from spry young trees. The house is sparsely furnished, but has beds, an oil stove, a bathroom, electric lights, and a working well. Best of all, it has an RCA radio that lacks only a battery to make it sing again. The farm had been abandoned by Uncle Guy around the start of the war.
Recent letters have provided hints about Dart’s Uncle Guy – the only brother of Dart, Sr. We’ve learned of his grand new house on the banks of Lake Erie, a stately brick place on Forest Hill, and now this forsaken farm, with a house, a solid old barn and an orchard. Who was this man who had so much property? What did he do for a living? How was he so prosperous when his brother lived on the edge of penury? This story has the makings of a Dickens novel.
Finally, Dart gets down to the crux of the letter. “Darling, I’ve been making ‘small talk’ here tonight, trying to fill a letter without making it sound too mushy, but every few minutes, I stop and dream of us. Please be careful of me in September. I’m scared that I’ll not be able to keep my place. September will be a chance for me to prove to myself that I am worthy of you. You’re good enough not to take the initiative in what we’ve done. If I can attain the point where I can neither ask you nor take the initiative without asking, then I’ll be a little more sure of myself. I’m a little scared of September for I think of it so much in the wrong way. Yet I want to be with you, to hold you in my arms, to have one of our almost inaudible conferences. But, if we do all that, we’ll be tempted to do the other, which we have promised not to do, and then broken the promise. There may have been a reason for our breaking it, but I think that I love you, and trust you, and feel so much more a part of you since our last nights together. That which we did seems to be the maximum expression of our love and trust in each other, except for the things which must come after we are married. I’d add ‘intimacy’ to that, but that beautiful word has been destroyed by modern meanings. Ours is as beautiful as all the loveliness those words can convey.”
# # #
Last night, Dot got home from the Millers so late and she was so exhausted that all she could do was sit in the living room and store up enough energy to drag herself up to her oven-like bedroom on the third floor. She apologizes for not writing.
When she got home tonight, her mother was reading a lovely letter from Dart at the dinner table. “Just proves you’re already one of the family, ‘cuz that’s how family mail gets treated.”
This afternoon, she is again acting as a companion to Mrs. Reynolds. “I used to have an ambition to live to be 100 years old, but since coming up here I’m beginning to think it might not be so much fun. Mrs. Reynolds is literally waiting to die. She has constant headaches, is very hard of hearing, and is generally miserable. She can navigate only with two canes and a person beside her to help support her. Up until last winter she did manage to drive around in her Buick, but now that’s out of the question. If the time ever comes when I am in such poor health and am a constant worry to my family, I hope I pass away quietly during the night. ‘Course, being such a healthy brat, I can hardly feature it. Still, I s’pose it’s quite possible that I’ll be totally worthless by the time I’m sixty – heaven forbid.”
She and her mother were discussing wedding plans this afternoon. Her mother thinks four attendants each is not too many. In a church as large and grand as theirs, one needs a bit of pomp in the ceremony. Even though the great day is almost a year away, it’s not too early to be asking people they want to be in the wedding party. El has been in so many weddings that she would really prefer not to be asked to be in Dot’s (I wonder if standing by when her younger sister is the bride, after she herself was “left at the altar” has colored El’s opinion.) Dot knows she’d like to have Cynthia as a bridesmaid, but she’ll be graduating next June and may still be in Ohio at the time of the wedding. The issue of distance may also play a role in getting who they want at this wedding.
She’s hoping that Dart will be in Greenwich on September 8. She and El will give him a few hours to rest up from his journey before they all head off to Sunapee at 4:00 AM. That way, they should be at the lake by around noon. That’s only 49 days from now!
This week will be extra busy for Dot. She’ll be babysitting for the Pecsoks and the Millers, and doing her regular job, which includes taking all her charges to the beach and teaching them how to dive, as well as organizing a horseshoe tournament! Phew! The only reason she bores Dart with this trivia is to warn him that her letters may be skinnier and more scarce that he’d like next week.
Betty and Gordon went on a picnic with two other couples at Lake Wacabuck today. Betty was as excited as Dot had been about a year ago when she got a phone call from Dart from Norfolk.